CaixaBank has activated an artificial intelligence tool designed for the customers' financial needs and for customising both the company's advising service and the commercial information that customers receive via the various service channels.
This system is designed for integrated use throughout the company's entire business network, including the inTouch remote personal advising service, the CaixaBankNow online banking channel and the network of branches and ATMs.
The key to success when using artificial intelligence is being able to adapt the information and the offer of products and services to what the customer needs at any given time. This allows advisers to identify the people that require a specific product, despite not being directly intended for them. Similarly, it also streamlines the commercial information customers receive through their digital service channels: CaixaBankNow, SMS, email, etc.
The launch of the project began with inTouch, where the artificial intelligence tool is already in full operation for the more than 600 service advisers. Similarly, CaixaBank has began deploying the pilot program in more than 300 branches alongside its integration in the processes and campaigns of the online banking, mobile banking and ATM channels.
Over the next months, the rest of the network will have full implementation.
Technology and scientific talent come together to better understand our customers
The tool draws on the strength of CaixaBank's data pool, which boasts more than 900 terabytes of information and is able to handle over 12,000 transactions per second during peak hours, and on the use of advanced predictive models designed by a team of data scientists, employing machine learning and big data technqiues.
The financial institution, chaired by Jordi Gual and with CEO Gonzalo Gortázar, is a pioneer in the centralisation of all customer interaction data from the various service channels (website, mobile phone, branches, ATMs, etc.) in a single data warehouse.
For this data pool, the CaixaBank business intelligence team applies data analysis and artificial intelligence techniques to foster complex modellings. Since 2016, the financial institution has maintained a subsidiary, CaixaBank Business Intelligence, exclusively for managing information from a scientific point of view to support commercial activity. Currently, CaixaBank Business Intelligence has a team of close to one hundred specialists, all of whom are highly qualified in the latest big data, AI and machine learning techniques: prediction using GBM, xGBoosty Random Forest; Word2Vec for text mining; Google API key, geolocation cookies; programming in R, ODM, Python and SAS, etc. Chaired by Cristina Lázaro, the subsidiary is integrated in the company's General Business Management, directed by Juan Antonio Alcaraz.
Using models developed in advance, the commercial action plan has been designed with a complete focus on the customers' needs and has been reinforced with filters to optimise frequency and the contact channels; thus, it is possible to identify the best way of informing customers without saturating them with repeated offers.
As a result of this entire process, the new CaixaBank tool identifies the three most relevant products for the customer from the company's whole catalogue and aligns them with the different commercial campaigns. Company advisers receive an "intelligent" list daily that identifies the customers who are most connected with the products that are being marketed at any given time. The list also reminds advisers to contact any users with whom they have not interacted within the previous three months, thus guaranteeing that all CaixaBank customers are contacted by their personal adviser at least once per quarter.
The information that advisers receive is complemented by a second predictive tool that is able to detect—using a model based on 1,300 variables— customers who have began the process of leaving the company.
CaixaBank, a leader in innovation
CaixaBank is the leading financial group in retail banking in Spain and one of the most important in Portugal. It has 15.6 million customers in the Iberian market and boasts the peninsula's leading business network.
Technology and digitisation are key in the company's business model, which has the largest base of digital customers in Spain (6.3 million). In addition, CaixaBank has developed landmark technological projects in the sector, such as the creation of the first ATMs that allow users to withdraw cash through facial recognition and without having to enter their the PIN—a project chosen as one of the Technological Projects of the Year in the Tech Project Awards by the magazine The Banker.
Thanks to its digital transformation strategy, CaixaBank has become one of the highest-rated banks in the world based on the quality of its digital products and services. In 2019, the company was recognised as the Best Bank Transformation in Western Europe by the magazine Euromoney and the Most Innovative Bank in Western Europe by US magazine Global Finance. It has also been acknowledged as the Best Private banking institution in the world for its digital client communication at the Wealth Tech Awards held by the PWM magazine of the Financial Times group.
